A tidy up day

 

I was nearly out of bread, so the first job of the day (when I finally woke up again, after being awake another 3+ hours in the night) was to put some bread on to rise to finished dough.  I used half and half strong white and 8 seed flour, which makes a tasty loaf.  That got my day off to a positive start.

In the waking hours of the night, I had decided it would be a clear up day.  Books to put back on shelves, sort through old magazines, sort through LOTS of paperwork and put it in the appropriate folders in the drawers instead of as a stack waiting to be dealt with.  So, I did that half the afternoon and was pleased to have put my nose to the grindstone.  Still lots more of that to attend to, but today's another day.  I have two bags of novels which I don't need, so they will go to the Bracken Trust charity shop when I go to Llandod today.

My reward was to sit down with this book, which Tam gave me some money towards for Christmas.  It was a VERY expensive book, but is the third of three (I have had the other two for years) and I had been trying to find a copy for years but could only find it in America, and the postage would have doubled the cost of the purchase!  Originally the kids were going to club together to buy it for me for Christmas, but Gabby likes to surprise me with gifts, so I ended up forking out more for my share.  North Wales (with the exception of Anglesey, which has some good examples of early sculptures) isn't anything like as well endowed with interesting sculptures - more simple crosses - but there are one or two spectacular ones - the Pillar of Eliseg for example, high on my list of places to visit - which is early 9th C and not too far from Llangollen.

In the evening I sewed some more of the Pippi picture, and have done the Red Hot Pokers now and some greenery.  It's coming together nicely.  I watched lots of Digging for Britain programmes, which are excellent.  I shall pop in the Library today and put in a request for a couple of Prof. Alice Roberts' books, Crypt and Buried (I already have Ancestors in my collection).  

I have some energy, from the Steroids, and in a not quite so wet moment (where did the predicted sun/clouds go? - it poured all day), and after I had taken the recycyling down the track, I pounced on my new slim trowel. It has a its forked end for removing deep rooted weeds, serrated edge, slicer for cutting stalks etc, and I gave it a quick trial.  It is brilliant and easily removes weeds from the gravel and the cobbles and I weeded a couple of my planters at the front and it made short work of those.  A good investment.

Finally, I had an overdue delivery - shoes on a 48 hour delivery which I had ordered 12 days before from Pavers.  Lovely shoes, BUT too tight, so they have to go back.  They were delivered from Evri who, for returns, give you QR codes to scan - which I hate using.  It looked like I was going to have to deal with the scan and stick it in a metal box down in the town or drive 20 miles to the nearest drop off point in Kington.  Tam did some research and found I can take it to the Asda petrol station store as they are agents now.  Good.  I will have to go into Carmarthen for a replacement pair - trying on in future is the only way to go, although the recommendation on the size fitting said it was good and the other shoes I bought from them (in shop) were well sized and comfy.

Then I had to chase up another delivery - again something ordered at New Year - the long handled fork and trowel, which I couldn't even track yet as it hadn't been put out for delivery.  A bit p'd off tbh.  That will be Evri too.  I went to the Ebay order and said I wanted a refund, but have to wait another 3 days for that.  I bet they pull their finger out and send it now.

3.30 a.m.  I have been awake 2 hours and downstairs for one.  I had my last antibiotic today and take my last steroids in the morning.  I am feeling a bit more my old self but need to get walking again - not that the weather forecast is encouraging for that!  Rain all week.  Right, off to potter.